Nitrate v Safety

I am placing this into the 'presentation' category because when you watch a movie, it is a 'presentation'!

Today, at about 6:30 AM I heard a report on NPR about how a movie theater showed a classic movie, "Casablanca", in nitrate and was received admirably because the old film base, somehow, enhances the tonal characteristics of the film.

I was born around the time (1950) that the dangerous nitrate film was being discontinued by Hollywood; thus, I probably did not see any of the original movies that were on that base. Maybe I did, but I do not remember.

My question is this: Is there a profound visual difference between the two stocks? I do remember reading that safety film was actually developed in the 20s, but I always wondered why Hollywood held out as long as they did, since the nitrate base is highly inflammable. I know that for structural strength, the nitrate beat the safety film and that was certainly a concern, as the projector sprockets can be very taxing on film shown over and over. But I was not informed that the actual picture was better under the nitrate base.

Comments? - David Lyga

I'd be a little sceptical about claims of magic tonality on the nitrate base. Possibly there was an emulsion coated on it that had different characteristics from modern ones?

Did you (or anyone else here) ever see the marvelous 80s film Cinema Paradiso?

i know from personal experience that if you take collodion ( dried ) and write on it with a sharpie / fine point architectural pen
the ink permiates the celluloid. i also know that old wet plate image making the silver and chemistry had to be done
before the collodion dried out and made it impermiable ( unless honey emulsion is used. it was invented to keep the collodion pores? open )
and then later there was dry collodion emulsion. i'll admit i am guessing here, but maybe nitrate film base had an image
embedded inside of it rather than in a gelatin suspension that is on top of the safety film substrate ? no clue if i am grasping at straws
and this makes any sense ... i know people often suggest IJ prints look " so different / so bad / so inferior " because the image is on top of
the paper, not under a layer of gelatin so who knows maybe its the same with movie film? and who knows, maybe it is just something
that film experts can tell, and the rest of us can't tell the difference, like most things.

Halford, this is what I had the impression of hearing: that this was basically a ploy to enhance attendance. But, I do not know for sure. - David Lyga

jnanian said:

maybe nitrate film base had an image
embedded inside of it

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That's very interesting to learn. Thank you for that. If I didn't work in an old building made largely of wood I might even be tempted to try experimenting :-D

I very much doubt that it was actually on nitrate base.

-) Cinema projection of nitrate based films is likely illegal in most countries.
In West-Germany it became illegal in 1957. It even became a crime.

-) Mechanical quality likely is not acceptable for cinema projection

I assume the author mixed-up safety-film with nitrate-film.
(Here in Germany erroneously still the term Celluloid is commonly used when referring to cine-film on safety-base.)

It was done in a specially built projection booth.
Here's a link to the piece that David referenced;
http://www.npr.org/2017/04/10/523237767/whats-the-issue-with-nitrate-film-stock-its-combustible

AgX said:

I very much doubt that it was actually on nitrate base.

-) Cinema projection of nitrate based films is likely illegal in most countries.
In West-Germany it became illegal in 1957. It even became a crime.

-) Mechanical quality likely is not acceptable for cinema projection

I assume the author mixed-up safety-film with nitro-film.
(Here in Germany erroneously still the term Celluloid is commonly used when referring to cine-film on safety-base.)

Click to expand...

The theater was extensively fire-proofed before the viewing took place, in order to be in compliance with existing law. This website is revealing: http://www.goldenglobes.com/articles/dangerous-beauty-nitrate-films-return-hollywood-thanks-hfpa

And, thank you bdial for your link. - David Lyga

Thank you both for clarifying.

But still, from the engineer's point of view, I consider any visual difference caused by the difference in base a myth.

As the report indicates a visual difference may be due to other parameters that also are different. As a technicolor print film versus a chromogenic print film.

The difference might be that it's (presumably) a fresher print than what is available on safety stock.

Nitrate prints can be very beautiful, for a number of reasons, 99% of them having to do with lab processes no longer in effect.

The base itself, as a general rule, can be more brilliant and clear than acetate due to the light-piping characteristics of nitrate base; acetate being more diffuse. However, I find that polyester base tends to have a similar "clear" look, so that argument is subjective at best.

I think a large degree of nostalgia plays into this perception of nitrate being a superior base, but it probably has more to do with the fact that the film elements tend to have been directly printed off the original negative, thus avoiding a generational loss that was inherent in the later processes of making a protection dupe neg from which to make general release prints.

Also, they were fabricated by laboratories that had custom developing formulas, honed through out their life which are lost to current labs. Special developers, compounded and tweaked by master photochemists were never publicly discussed for a good reason; they were trade secrets!

I time/grade original era Hollywood films on a routine basis and compare them to copyright prints made at the time of original release and can say with confidence, that our prints are as good or better than mainstream releases of the 30's through the 60's.

I just did two new show prints of "Gold Diggers of 1933" from the original negative and, except for the damage that has crept in over the years from repeated printing, I would say they at least as good as the prints released in 1933.

I wouldn't want to attend a showing using nitrate film, regardless of the precautions taken. When I was perhaps 10 years old my father, a chemical engineer, demonstrated the flammability of nitrate film with a "mystery roll" of 2 `1/4 film. We went outside, and he fastened each end to a piece of wood, and lit it with a match. It was gone in a fraction of a second.

Well, I work with millions of feet of the stuff and (knock wood) have never had a problem.

Treat it with the respect it deserves, use the right equipment and you're OK.

I am more afraid of someone next to me filling their gas tank in their car than working with nitrate...

And, yes it is a fright when on fire...

See https://eastman.org/nitrate-picture-show

its not only the burns up in a fraction of a second, but the fumes given off
by nitrate based film are toxic and will kill you.

bdial said:

The difference might be that it's (presumably) a fresher print than what is available on safety stock.

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How can a nitrate-base film be significantly "fresher" than a safety-base one?
That would mean that it was recently made.

AgX said:

How can a nitrate-base film be significantly "fresher" than a safety-base one?
That would mean that it was recently made.

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Perhaps an earlier generation print from the original neg., rather than after several later stages of duplicating onto safety-base film ?

AgX said:

How can a nitrate-base film be significantly "fresher" than a safety-base one?
That would mean that it was recently made.

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Or it could mean that it was made from a fresher master negative.

railwayman3 said:

Perhaps an earlier generation print from the original neg., rather than after several later stages of duplicating onto safety-base film ?

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That is what I had in mind.

I would assume it was an older print, but also would not be remotely shocked to learn that someone had invested the time/money into some manner of reproduction for something like this. Because I know I would totally do something like that if I had the time, money, and resources, so I sure can't blame someone else for doing it themselves.

But on the more practical side of things, it doesn't seem terribly unlikely that an old nitrate film has sat safely in a film can, while more recent safety film reels have seen far more use and have suffered far more wear than surviving older stock.

Luckless said:

I would assume it was an older print, but also would not be remotely shocked to learn that someone had invested the time/money into some manner of reproduction for something like this. Because I know I would totally do something like that if I had the time, money, and resources, so I sure can't blame someone else for doing it themselves.

But on the more practical side of things, it doesn't seem terribly unlikely that an old nitrate film has sat safely in a film can, while more recent safety film reels have seen far more use and have suffered far more wear than surviving older stock.

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Er.. ah... never mind...

David Lyga said:

Today, at about 6:30 AM I heard a report on NPR about how a movie theater showed a classic movie, "Casablanca", in nitrate and was received admirably because the old film base, somehow, enhances the tonal characteristics of the film.

Click to expand...

Probably based on this http://www.npr.org/2017/04/10/52323...ign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170410

Kino said:

Er.. ah... never mind...

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What? Who doesn't love playing with potentially dangerous chemicals? Eyebrows grow back... usually.

Nitrate film seems to have been in fairly general use for 60-70 years.....I appreciate that there were some, or indeed many, significant disasters, but whether, in practical everyday use, it really was so highly dangerous ? I suppose that I'm thinking also of the many chemicals and processes in everyday use in both photography and more generally, even 40-50 years ago, which H&S have now totally banned.....there were always some disasters, but 99% of the time everything went well with common sense and care ?
Many years ago I knew the retired general manager of a former chain of cinemas, about 35 in all, which had been in business from the 1930's to the early 1960's when tv and bingo took over. That would infer about 15-20 years of nitrate use, and he told me that, in that time, there had never been an incident in 7 day poer week, 363 days per year, operation.

It depends. 1000m of Nitrate film, strongly heated, with more next to it, in a confined space with hundreds of people inside is quite different from handling a 1,6m roll in a darkroom.

That is why nitrate-base for still film got legally banned.

By the way, the projection cabinet in the nitrate-base days, at least here, was already a fire-shielding one.
And nevertheless projecting nitrate-film was banned.

And yes, basically one can argue on each safety-regulation.